We like to track sales of pickup trucks (specifically at Ford) as they are often a sign of strength or weakness in the small business and construction sectors, and based on these numbers from Ford, the small business sector looks strong.  For the month of October, Ford sold 75,974 F-Series trucks.  That represents a y/y increase of 16% and is the strongest October sales figure for the company since 2004.  Going back to 1996, the only three Octobers that were better than 2017 were 2001 (102K), 2004 (80K), and 1998 (78K).  When comparing sales on a m/m basis, it isn’t always an apples to apples comparison because of differences in ‘selling’ days, but a 16% y/y increase is positive no matter how you look at it.

While differences in the number of selling days can skew results over the short-term when comparing figures on a YTD basis, unadjusted numbers provide more of an apples to apples comparison, and here again, Ford’s results for 2017 continue to be very strong.  Through the end of October, total sales of F-Series trucks have been 734,610.  That represents an increase of 11.1% and is the best YTD reading for the first ten months of the year since 2005.